


9 lb. hammer or a woman like you

by perennial



Category: The Town (2010)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, and then what happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24098344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/pseuds/perennial
Summary: "No matter how much you change, you still have to pay the price for the things you've done. So I got a long road. But I know I'll see you again - this side or the other."This side, five years later.
Relationships: Claire Keesey/Doug MacRay
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	9 lb. hammer or a woman like you

Slow. He feels like he is learning the meaning of the word for the first time, like he’s four years old in front of the TV watching Sesame Street. Slow. Slow talking, slow fishing, slow driving. Slow sun making its trip through the sky.

Nothing in Boston was slow; even quiet nights in were punctured by sirens going off in the distance, neighbors’ screaming fights, usually a gunshot or two somewhere nearby. No one in this corner of Florida would recognize a gunshot if they heard one.

Doug works for a home repair guy who doesn’t ask many questions and pays him under the table. In his off time he fishes or takes the boat out or listens to the game on the radio. Sometimes all three at once. There isn’t much else to do. There are a few bars around but he’s sober and friendless and still a little gun shy—not eager to show his face frequently enough that someone here might be able to identify it.

He has never been a man of many hobbies. He picks up reading: the shanty came with a stack of Agatha Christies stashed in a corner. Progress through them is slow, intentionally: he savors his time within each unfamiliar story, all chock full of problems not of his own making, happening in a country and time far from his own. He wonders if Claire likes Agatha Christie. He can’t solve a single mystery. She would probably solve them all.

**five years later**

Doug says, “Evenin’, Bill,” and goes to the table where a man in a red ballcap is watching the game. He claps him on the back and pulls out an empty chair with a screech. “Hey, man, how are ya.”

“Just in time,” says Mario. “Cardinals just scored.”

Doug groans and opens his wallet.

He has to buy Mario another drink before the night is over, but Mario has to buy him three. Doug leaves him rehashing the whole game with a few guys at the bar and walks out whistling, his shoes crunching on the gravel, hands in his pockets. He drinks so rarely—one beer per hit, and only ever on Mario’s dime—that he has to focus a little more than usual on his footsteps, so he doesn’t see that there is someone at his truck until he’s a bodylength away.

In his truck, more like. A dark head in the bed of his truck is looking his way. His brain screams danger and shoots a jolt of panic through his whole body—will that response ever go away?—a second before it recognizes Claire.

Claire.

 _Claire_.

She has let the hatch down and is sitting on the edge, boots dangling. She is still as a statue, watching him.

She looks exactly the same. Not a second older. Her hair is pulled back; she rarely did that in Boston but the humidity here is killer.

She drops softly to her feet and says, “Hi.”

“Hi.” His mouth is suddenly full, crowded with thousands of words that can’t seem to arrange themselves into sentences. His brain compiles and spits out the dumbest possible combination. “How did you know I’d be here?” Not in Tangerine—of course she knew that. Here. At Bill’s Place. He can barely be considered a regular, he’s made a point of preventing it.

“It’s the World Series. It was either go door to door through town looking for Red Sox fans or check all the sports bars in Tangerine. This one was hit number three.”

“I,” he says. She’s a regular Agatha Christie, he knew it. “How long have you been out here? Why didn’t you come in?”

“The game wasn’t over. I didn’t want to take you away from it.”

“The— _game?_ To hell with the game, Claire! You’re _here_.”

She lifts a shoulder and drops it. “You looked like you were enjoying yourself.”

“If I’m this easy to find maybe it’s a sign I should move on.” He’s only half joking.

Her mouth crooks up in a smile, the lopsided one he has missed and missed. “Doug. No one in the world knows Tangerine exists. Even Florida doesn’t know Tangerine exists. I got lost a dozen times trying to get here.”

“Yeah. It’s a nice place, you know, it’s been good to me. Why, uh, why now? Has something happened?”

“No! No. Everything’s fine. I just… wanted to see for myself that you were okay. And the FBI has finally stopped monitoring all my movements in case we were to contact each other.”

He realizes suddenly that they’re having this conversation in the parking lot in front of Bill’s. “Hey, ah, what do you say to moving this reunion to my place? I’ll make you a drink. I’ve only got seltzer and orange juice but if you close your eyes and pretend, it’s almost good.”

She smiles big. “Yeah.”

The shanty isn’t impressive, but it’s clean, at least. They go sit on the dock, the stars a thick canopy above them. The night is warm, for all it’s October; condensation gathers on their glasses of ice water within seconds. The slow-moving water laps at the dock posts in near silence.

She says, “You look…”

He waits.

She ducks her head and scratches behind her ear. “Um. Peaceful.” She laughs self-consciously.

“That’s a good word. I like that word. Peaceful.” It’s true. Her surprise appearance tonight, the shock of adrenaline it caused, has shown him just how much he has relaxed into this life. He’d like to think that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s just a fool’s optimism. Either way, he is a different man than the one who fled Charlestown.

He tells her about his Tangerine life, his Tangerine job, his Tangerine name. It’s the first time he has ever been able to be fully, wholly truthful with her, and he wants to talk endlessly, so that she knows this is different, he’s not hiding anything, but there isn’t much to tell.

She is working for a law firm now. “Figured it would be good to know which end is up if I’m going to be fraternizing with a wanted fugitive.”

She still wants this.

He is in hiding and no one here knows his real name and his friends are dead and he’ll never be able to buy her a Tiffany’s necklace again and he has ached for her so much it hurt and she still wants this.

She looks awkward. “That is...”

Doug realizes he hasn’t spoken and all the Tangerine slowness vanishes from his limbs. He has her in his arms as fast as a Boston bank robber loading the bags. Her kiss is mint and lightning and makes him want to run into the future, ready now for anything and everything it has in store for them.

He does slow down once they come up for air, though. After all: they have all night, and all the ones forthcoming.

-

The Red Sox lose the series.

Sunkissed from a day on the water, dancing from grill to table to music playing from the old radio propped in the window, a warm, beloved hand in his, the future tasting something like hope, Doug is too happy to mind.

**Author's Note:**

> In some universes, the Red Sox won the 2013 World Series. Not in this one.  
> sincerely,  
> a diehard Cardinals fan who thoroughly enjoyed watching Fenway get heisted in this film even if only fictionally


End file.
